Natural Gas

A demonstrator tractor featuring dual-fuel equipment and a diesel-fueled heater will show the advantages of the glider kits run partly on natural gas and heaters that warm engine coolant and the cab without engine idling.

Ryder System Inc. announced today that Blu, an operator of liquefied natural gas refueling stations and provider of LNG technology solutions, has selected Ryder to provide LNG vehicles for Blu fleets in Utah and Georgia.

IPD, an aftermarket provider of engine components for heavy-duty diesel and natural gas powered engines, announced a new patent-pending piston design for the aftermarket. This new IPDSteel piston design uses precision friction welding to create an aftermarket alternative to similar newer model engine piston designs that are currently only available from original equipment manufacturers.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has proposed regulations to allow the construction and operation of new liquefied natural gas facilities under DEC permits, according to the New York Motor Truck Association.

Lowe’s has launched a dedicated fleet of natural gas-powered trucks at its regional distribution center in Mount Vernon, Texas, working with NFI. Lowe’s dedicated fleet at Mount Vernon is among the first serving a major retail distribution center in North America to run solely on natural gas.

Converting more fleets of trucks to natural gas is one of the outcomes expected from the region's industry-wide summit on natural gas in trucking opening this Thursday, Oct. 17, at the Early Brown Center in Brooklyn Center. Details at www.mntruck.org.

More than 600 fleet managers and fleet stakeholders took part at last week's Green Fleet Conference & Expo, held Oct. 1-2 at the Phoenix Convention Center. The exhibition hall had nearly 70 exhibitors, and while there were plenty of interesting things to see, Editor in Chief Deborah Lockridge picks out three of the most intriguing to write about for her "All That's Trucking" blog.

UPS plans to invest approximately $50 million to build an additional nine liquefied natural gas fueling stations, bringing the total number of stations to 13. Four were announced in April, and all should be operational by the end of 2014.

In Europe, they're partway through the seventh Blue Corridor Natural Gas Vehicle Rally, where natural-gas-powered vehicles are driving from St. Petersburg, Russia, around the Baltic Sea with stops along the way in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to demonstrate the benefits of using natural gas in transportation.

Tenaska is launching a marketing and development company in response to the growing use of liquefied natural gas and compressed natural gas, together NG fuels, in the transportation sector and among industries using high-horsepower engines.

Fleets that want to use an even "greener" alternative fuel than natural gas can now purchase renewable natural gas fuel, made from methane that comes from landfills, large farms and other waste streams, from Clean Energy.

A dual-fuel conversion system can offer some of the fuel- and emissions-saving benefits of a natural gas engine without going out and buying a brand-new truck. Read more in this story from the September issue of HDT.